Bookwrap Gems

Like lots of other people, I am making a rather belated attempt to produce bookwrap gems for the Festival of Quilts.  These will form the basis of the tombola and raise funds for the quilt museum in York.  Some of us see it as an opportunity to recycle UFOS, leftovers and even journal quilts.  Margaret Cooter is aiming to make thirty and has put instructions on her blog (see 'This weekends bookwraps') The 2010 journal quilts are just the right size for an A6 bookwrap and you can find a quick way of converting them into bookwraps here at A Fabric Adiction:  sjtreen.blogspot.co.uk   However, when I got mine out I found that some of the compositions do not work when turned 90 degrees. I also remembered that 2010 was the year I learnt to do extremely narrow (1/8 ins) bindings which meant that I had to remove the bindings completely and sew on new ones.

Actually I began making bookwrap gems in the winter.  I made two by hand from scraps of fabric that I then overlaid with net and heavily hand-stitched.  This one is fine.

I put a binding on the second one and then found it was not big enough to hold the book so it has gone into the cupboard and will have to be rethought.

Now I have started again.  I have made several A6 sized ones from fabric that I had variously dyed, painted, treated with Thermofax stencils etc. and I have gone through a folder of old embellishments and found one or to things that can be reused.  Here are some of this week's efforts.

This one was fabric I dyed years ago and then later thermofaxed with circles blanked out.

And this one is two very small leftover pieces of dyed fabric plus a contrasting 'spine'.

More dyed and thermofaxed fabric.  These are all A6 size because I have been trying to use up small leftovers but I am also determined to some A5 sized ones.  So far I have one finished

The triangles on this one were part of an experiment in making paper quilts.

Yesterday I began converting my 2010 journal quilts.  I am still struggling with fastenings for them so they will appear later.  You may be asking why I am making journal quilts in a glorious (to me) heatwave.  Well,, it is actually too hot to be outside for much of the day and I have discovered that my studio is the coolest room in the house.